Airstrip One

Hear, Hear for Heffer - 8th May 2003, 22.19

Although this is not shown on any website, the Daily Mail produced the first (though surely not the last) blast against the proposed European Constitution, with a strong article from Simon Heffer calling for a referendum. Their headline, "A Blueprint for Tyranny" set out the strong foundations of the argument:

"Imagine a country that is no longer independent, no longer capable of deciding its own destiny, no longer able to make effective democratic choices". [the last clause is alreay in place but we won't hold that against them]. "Imagine the future that is being prepared for us under the direction of a former President of France, with the apparent complicity of our own Prime Minister. It is no exaggeration to say that the European constitution now receiving its finishing touches in Brussels would mark the end of everything we understand by the terms Britain and Britishness. There will be no more national sovereignty, no more meaningful election to Westminster, no freedom independent of our European partners."

"If Giscard D'Estaing's blueprint is enacted in anything like the present form, it will strip our voters of any real control over foreign policy, defence, the economy, law, policing, commercial policy, health, transport and indeed everything that can be described as the national interest".

Marvellous tabloid journalism and a welcome tone that reminds me of the battlehardened Andrew Dodge. If only the national interest mattered...